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explosion that killed both his parents.
Those killed by the mine are as follows:
1.
Mahdiya Ibrahim Hashish, 38 (Hussein Ali Hashish’s wife)
Mahdiya’s five children:
2.
Hassan Hussein Hashish, 18-19
3.
Ahmed Hussein Hashish, 16
4.
Fatima Hussein Hashish, 10
5.
Ismael Hussein Hashish, nine
6.
Mustafa Hussein Hashish, seven
Mahdiya’s daughter-in-law (her eldest son’s Hassan’s wife)
7.
Azar
Ahmed Kutshi, 17
THE AIR STRIKE
During the last two weeks of August, after the mine/IED had killed seven family members as they attempted
to escape, the house where Munira and her family were staying was hit by an air strike, which left nine dead
and several injured.
42
Amnesty International visited the scene of the strike on three separate occasions.
Munira told Amnesty International:
Daesh were in the area, we didn’t see them in our street but we knew that at night they went
around on motorcycles and lay mines [IEDs] under cover of darkness. It was impossible to know
which house IS would be in from day-to-day as they used to move around. We heard that they had
made openings in the walls of people’s houses so they could move without being seen on the
streets. Any house was their house if they so wished.
43
The house was a single-storey house with five rooms arranged around a courtyard. Munira described how at
8am the men had left the house to fetch bread. As the bakeries had ceased to function, they had no choice
but to search for bread in abandoned houses. Later that morning Munira and her two brother’s wives had
filled a wheelbarrow with jerry cans and went to a well to fetch water. As they were returning to the house, a
volley of shells landed close-by but the women made it inside unharmed. Munira then explained what
happened next:
It was when they (the Coalition planes) saw us that they struck. The strike occurred straight after
we re-entered the house. It happened just after the call for midday prayer. I remember hearing the
call to prayer, then the strike happened. My brothers Hussein and Mohammed and their kids and
the neighbours were all killed. Those who were not killed were injured. The only one who survived
unharmed is my grandchild, a baby aged four months. I was holding him in my arms and he was
not hurt.
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We pulled the children out between life and death. My four-year-old granddaughter Ahad’s knee
was destroyed. We tried to get her to hospital for five hours but Daesh kept sending us back –
Daesh left her to bleed for five hours and there was fighting around and planes in the sky.
Eventually we managed to get her to the National Hospital. Later we made it out of Raqqa and she
was treated by MSF in Tel Abyad. She’s in Turkey now.
I was injured and so were all my children. My seven-year-old son, Ahmad, was the worst; he
suffered severe wounds to his abdomen. He never healed properly as he could not get proper
medical care; he needs treatment. My nephew Hassan, who was only seven months old, lost his
right foot. He lost both his parents and also his foot. He needs a prosthetic foot before he learns to
walk, so that he can learn properly.
Those killed by the air strike are:
1.
Hussein Ibn Ali Hashish, 45 (Munira’s brother)
2.
Mohammed Ibn Ali Hashish, 40 (Munira’s brother)
3.
Amal, six (Mohammed’s daughter)
42
See footnote 38.
43
Interview with Munira Hashish, Raqqa, 10 February 2017.
44
Ibid.
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4.
Nour Aayoun, four (Mohammed’s daughter)
As well as:
5.
Nidhal Qacem, 25 (Munira’s son-in-law)
6.
Manar, three (Nidhal’s daughter)
And three distant relatives who had been sheltering with the Hashish family:
7.
Umm Najem
8.
Najem, 12 (Umm Najem’s son)
9.
Abdallah, 17
Munira does not know why the house was bombed. She told Amnesty:
Daesh was in the area but not specifically in our street. They did not come to our house; it was an
Arabic house [one storey], not a tall building, so it wasn’t useful for them. We stayed in the house
and kept very quiet, did not put on any light at night to avoid Daesh seeing us, because if they did
they would have likely sent us to the centre of town [as human shields]. We didn’t want to go that
way; we wanted to stay in our home because the SDF were getting close and we wanted to be
liberated.
In the end we managed to escape Dara’iya by walking on the blood of others. We stepped where
other people had been blown up, in the hope that there were no more live mines in that spot. It
feels terrible but that is what we did. We had no choice.
Ali Hassan Nafa; Mahdia Hashish and her husband Hussein Ali; Hussein Hashish, Mohammed Hashish and Hussein Ibrahim Hashish, and
Mohammed Ali Hashish. © Private